Norse merchant republic: We sell products and get into fights - but how?

[PaxImperator]

Hi all,

I'm doing my first playthrough as a merchant republic. I'm the reformed Germanic Fylkir/Doge of Ireland. Since this is my first time playing a merchant republic, I'm a bit out of my depth. Two questions:

- What retinue should I use? I guess my armies will mostly consist of archers, light infantry and pikemen, what with all the cities. I'm torn between the light infantry, pikemen and housecarl retinues. The housecarls' innate offense and morale bonuses seem tempting, but perhaps pikemen would lead to better tactics selections by my commanders? And light infantry retinues would be a cheap way of bulking out my raiding parties.

- What build order should I use? Is it a good idea to spam the Sea of Ireland with as many trade posts as possible? And do I then build more income-producing towns in the county of Dublin, or is there a better way to strengthen my economy fast? I'll be raiding for extra income no matter what, of course.

Any and all advice would be welcome!

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

Retinues should be carefully balanced to favour the tactics you want to see your troops using and ban the tactics you want to never see used. Patricians get much larger retinue allowances than Feudal lords and can pay for them more easily, so I don't recommend you use city levies at all unless you just desperately need to make up numbers (and even then, only if you can't afford mercenaries). As for the actual composition, it really depends on your culture, but I generally prefer to blend heavy infantry, pikes and archers to get a shieldwall going.

Always prioritise a new trade post contiguous with your others to maximise the size of your trade zone, and when you can't build any more of them, upgrade the enclaves first, then the garrisons. Focus on income buildings in your cities, obviously. Focus on the core mansion building (which boosts trade post limit), then the vault for more money and the warehouse for more retinue limit. Levies are the least useful thing you can get, so only bother with them when you have more money than you can spend.

 

[PaxImperator]

Thanks a lot! That's very helpful. My neighbours have been declaring war on me a lot lately, so I guess I'll have to balance growing my income and growing my retinues.

One more question: Should I build multiple tradeposts adjacent to the same seazone or should I aim to cover as many seazones as possible with one tradepost each? The zones would be contiguous with my capital either way.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

You need to have the majority of the tradeposts in a seazone to control that seazone and count it for contiguity. But contiguity by land adjacency also works. Just do everything you can to make sure that all your tradeposts form one single large trade zone to maximise their profitability.